Heat insulating bodies with evacuated inner chamber are already known. Heat insulating bodies of that kind are described for instance in the laying open to the public inspections and the patent documents as follows DE OS 26 52 295, DE OS 34 14 665, DE PS 36 30 399, DE OS 37 41 239, DE OS 38 43 907, DE OS 39 40 649, DE OS38 28 669, DE OS39 15 170, DE OS 40 19 870 and DE OS 42 14 002. In their basic structure these solutions show on principle the same construction. The insulating layer bases upon the principle that a insulated body or container which has been evacuated shows a filling material of various kind. The filling serves for the stability of the evacuated insulating body. The presented documents differ essentially from the material of the fillings. The form of the evacuated insulating bodies may be of various size and shape.
The tenor of the documents U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,162 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,268,581 is heat impending panels in form of fire insulating glass pane structures and its production. These are distinguished by an built up of layers. In the document U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,162 these structures are brought together in an evacuated chamber and are brought together by means of an additional evacuation during the joining of the individual layers. A multiple chamber system has been proposed whereby in the preliminary chamber these structures are preheated.
The documents DE PS 40 40 144, EP O 380 812 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,996,725 give a description of procedures and arrangements which lead to hermetically packing of substances that are not supposed to contact the atmosphere during the process of filling. The documents DE PS 40 40 144 specify a method of filling powdered material, stored in a collecting tank, in a container e.g. a sac, connected with said container, as well as a device to carry out this method. The tenor of this document is the filling of powdered materials without letting escape pieces of said materials in the environment. At the same time the filled plastic sac is sealed with two opposing welding bars which are heated electrically and moved together mechanically. After having finished the process of filling, the device for filling has to be opened by means of a movable side wall and the filled sac is replaced by an empty one.
A similar process and a similar device are described in the document EP O 380 812. Thereby large packing till 100 1 especially for powdered milk are filled and sealed in a inner part of an evacuation chamber. This solution specifies a discontinuous process of filling and evacuation which becomes continuous by means of several chambers.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 3,996,725 describes a device for filling solid and liquid materials under vacuum in thermoplastic containers. These containers are filled in a evacuating chamber and are sealed owing to heat sealing by means of a heating element. At the end of this process these containers fall out of the evacuation chamber, said chamber is open.
The documents mentioned above give a description of insulating bodies in itself respectively of processes and arrangements for evacuating and filling plastic containers with powdered or free-flowing materials. The size of this container is very limited owing to the use of evacuating chambers. These stated containers are of a capacity till 100 1. As a consequence these arrangements are not suitable for the production of insulating bodies in form of panels or other sizes of larger dimensions. The sealing of the plastic containers is based upon the heat welding of the used plastic, so that materials of different quality may not be used.
The invention mentioned in claim 1 involves the problem of producing heat insulating bodies, by means of a device, of any size and shape with an evacuated inner chamber with at least one filling at a wide variety of points.
The archived advantages of this invention consist in particular in the production of insulating bodies of any size and shape with an evacuated inner chamber. The insulating body should be composed of a thermal non conductive framing, metallic side walls as well as of a filling consisting of a thermal non conductive material, said material serves for the stability of the evacuated inner chamber preferably designed like a panel. These fillings should be composed of microporous material by preference. The advantages of the evacuated inner chamber result mostly in considerably long useful life of the insulating body by means of fillings in a evacuated and hermetically sealed chamber, sealed against the environment, as it is shown at the moment by using foamed materials because of their absorption of humidity from the environment. Equivalent to this facts is of course a considerably long useful life of the insulating body in itself while the insulating values remain constant. With necessity as a result there are further advantages, consisting mainly in long-lasting energy saving, based upon the constant conditions of insulation, preventing the use of foamed materials and as a result of this a vital saving of ecologically dangerous chemicals and that heat insulating bodies produced with this device can be easily disposed of. The used fillings are reusable at any time and the metallic side walls are recyclable at any time by making them up for the raw material circuit. This device is furthermore distinguished by simple construction and as a consequence its integration in an one-product line that already exists or has to be constructed can be easily realized as well as its technological handling.
Advantageous combinations of the invention are described in the claims 2 to 11. According to claim 2 which comprises the development of the cover magazine and the connection of the later with a movable carriage that runs by a linear kind of actuation. The development according to claims 3 to 5 comprises special constructions of the handling system for the covers. This handling system according to claim 3 appropriately consists in a gripper and a perpendicular movable lifting unit. The gripper according to claim 4 consists of two U-shaped shells embracing the cover as a whole, so that said cover can be positioned on top of the wall of the insulating body. According to claim 5 these U-shaped shells are joined at least via two linear propulsive systems.
The developments according to claims 6 to 11 comprise modifications of the apparatus concerning the solid and hermetic joints of the cover with the heat insulating body. This apparatus according to claim 6 may be realized by using an electron beam gun, according to claim 8 a laser beam welding plant or according to claim 10 an electric welding apparatus. Using an electron beam gun according to claim 6 includes at the same time the integration of an apparatus into the processing chamber to control the electron beam. Appropriately the electron beam gun according to claim 7 is fitted with another vacuum producing device to benefit of the possibility to use a higher pressure level in the processing chamber. The laser beam according to claim 9 has to be placed by means of a beam guiding system in such a fashion that the outer contour of the cover is connected to the wall of the insulating body.
According to claim 11 it is also possible to obtain the sealing by means of an electrically runned contact electrode to weld the cover with the heat insulating body.